Suspension of Disbelief

Fred’s Resurrection?

Steven Stark has an interesting perspective over at RealClearPolitics :

The Republican race is coming into focus. Well, sort of. If John McCain can win the Florida primary on January 29, he’ll be the clear front-runner heading into Super Tuesday a week later.

But Florida is hardly a sure thing for McCain. Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney are contesting the state heartily. Plus, Florida is a closed primary, meaning Independents can’t participate — and McCain polls far worse in contests where only Republicans can vote.

If McCain loses in Florida, the Republicans may well be headed to a deadlocked race and convention. And history teaches us that the likeliest candidate to emerge in that scenario is someone like Warren G. Harding: the prototypical, less-than-stellar candidate to which conventions turn when the going gets rough.

This year’s Harding? Believe it or not (are you sitting down?), despite the fact that he’s withdrawn from the race, is Fred Thompson.

That could be interesting, no? 😉

Meanwhile, down at the ranch American Prospect, Spencer Ackerman writes:

Indeed, Petraeus can basically write his next round of orders. But wherever he goes, his next important campaign probably won’t be on any battlefield. It’ll be political. For the past year, the GOP has laid the groundwork to enlist Petraeus as its standard-bearer in the fairly likely event that the party loses in November to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. You read it here first. Plant your lawn signs now. Petraeus 2012: Surging to the White House.

But maybe you actually read it here first, eh? 🙄

If the Petraeus thing were to happen, Hillary could trot out her famous “willing suspension of disbelief” line. 😀

I Am Not Paranoid!

Believing the Web and email are both secure and private requires a willing suspension of disbelief.

So read this story and take a lesson for living:

The Softer Side of Spyware from Sears, Kmart

Googins noted on his company’s blog that the spyware installed by Sears transmitted everything from banking logins, email, and all other forms of Internet usage to comScore for analysis all in the name of ‘community’ participation. This was done without notice, an act contrary to documentation about the community from Sears saying that any data collected would stay within Sears’ hands at all times.

I’ve been trying to tell people that they shouldn’t assume privacy and security online. Not even in “private” and “personal” email.

But I think most of them think I’m being old-fashioned. Or hypersensitive. Or paranoid.

No. I’m. Not.

🙂

Now, say it with me…all together now…

Mark is not paranoid!

Thank you.

A Lying “Live” Webcam?

These days I have an interest in weather conditions on Mt. Hood. I will have to drive there to get to central Oregon when my oldest daughter gets ready to have her third child.

So this morning I checked my usual webcam. (The one on the right on this screen shot.)


click for larger image

Then I happened across KGW’s webcam (shown on the left above) for Timberline Lodge, uphill several miles from the webcam on the right.

Notice that KGW’s web camera is self-identified as “live”! It even counts down and “refreshes” every 10 minutes or so.

Maybe there’s global warming going on at Timberline and it hasn’t worked its way down to Government Camp yet.

Maybe by the time I have to drive by there, it will have globally warmed at Government Camp.

Meanwhile, I often get to see Mt. Hood on the way to/from school with my two youngest children. It doesn’t look at all as KGW depicts it.

(Today’s Cheap Shot: What’s else is KGW broadcasting that’s not a reflection of reality?) 😀

Mr. President, Don’t Divide Jerusalem

Joel Rosenberg reports in his blog:

The Bush administration’s much-anticipated and highly-controversial Arab-Israeli peace conference opens tomorrow in Annapolis, Maryland. A great deal is at stake. The most contentious issue on the table: the future of Jerusalem. The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is talking openly about the possibility of dividing the holy city and giving part of it to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. This would be a mistake of colossal proportions. It will not send a message of goodwill and peace to Israel’s enemies, as Olmert and his advisors hope. Rather, it will invite more attacks by radical Islamic jihadists who want all of Jerusalem, not just part of it. What’s more, even mere talk of dividing Jerusalem fuels the apocalyptic, genocidal ambitions of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his colleagues who believe Israel’s day of judgment is coming and that Shia Muslims are destined to annihilate Judeo-Christian civilization and gain control of Jerusalem for themselves.

Mr. President, don’t divide Jerusalem. Don’t consider it. Don’t talk about it. Don’t encourage others to talk about it. Doing so will bring war — and a horrifying one at that — not the peace that you seek. Rather, open tomorrow’s conference by making it crystal clear that precisely because we want peace in the Middle East, we will not support any division of Jerusalem any more than we would support dividing Washington or London or Paris or Moscow with our enemies or our neighbors.

Then we have this news story from Agence Presse France via Yahoo: Israelis, Palestinians make progress in US talks

Israel and the Palestinians said Monday they had made major progress in reviving frozen peace talks, as US President George W. Bush launched his biggest push yet to end the Middle East conflict.

And WorldNetDaily reports:

Syria agreed to attend this week’s U.S.-sponsored Annapolis summit after Damscus received American and Israeli commitments the Golan Heights would be put on the table at the Israeli-Palestinian conference.

The Golan Heights is strategic mountainous territory that looks down on Israeli population centers, and was twice used by Syria to launch ground invasions into the Jewish state.

WND prefaces its report with this observation: “U.S. invitation has no preconditions for state accused of supporting terror.”

In my view, it requires a willing suspension of disbelief to accept all this as good news.

Most? Seriously!

What percentage of global population lives in indigence and poverty?

So what’s with this BBC headline and story?

Most ready for ‘green sacrifices’

Most people are ready to make personal sacrifices to address climate change, according to a BBC poll of 22,000 people in 21 countries.

I dare say most people on the planet have greater matters of more pressing concern regarding daily survival. I suspect they don’t know about or even care about global warming. They have nothing to sacrifice.

Where Little Ones CryBut to those who have money to spend and fall in BBC’s “most people” category, an extremely practical and helpful suggestion for a green sacrifice:

You’re welcome.

Disclaimer: I didn’t interview and/or poll anyone in any country. I have been wrong before.

A Fiery Pope?

Pope John Paul II aflame?

Is this Pope John Paul II waving from beyond the grave? Vatican TV director says yes

This fiery figure is being hailed as Pope John Paul II making an appearance beyond the grave.

The image, said by believers to show the Holy Father with his right hand raised in blessing, was spotted during a ceremony in Poland to mark the second anniversary of his death.

[…]

The pictures were being broadcast continuously on Italian TV and also posted on religious websites, some of which crashed as thousands logged on to see for themselves the eerie figure formed by the flames.

The bonfire was lit during a service at Beskid Zywiecki, close to John Paul’s birthplace at Katowice, southern Poland, on April 2 – the second anniversary of his death.

If the image wasn’t photoshopped, is that a demon manifestation?

Or is it a sign from God about the flaming state of the previous Pope?

Or is it truly what the director of Vatican TV says it is?

For the record, I lean towards computer hijinks.

OnSt…op

The folks at InfoPackets alerted me (and thousands more, of course) to this:

GM On Board with Radical OnStar Plan

In the world of computer technology, measures that put the brakes on a user without his or her permission are often tossed into the hated spyware heap. However, when it happens to a car thief, it’s hard not to be a supporter.

Confused? Granted, the idea is a strange one. For years OnStar has been offering drivers directions, help in emergencies, and saving them embarassment after keys are locked in a vehicle. However, its latest idea, to gradually decrease the speed of a stolen vehicle, is getting some very positive reviews from everyone but the thieves themselves.

OnStar calls the initiative Stolen Vehicle Slowdown (simple enough), and it works by transmitting a signal from the company’s Detroit headquarters to a car’s powertrain system. That signal tells the vehicle to reduce its flow of gasoline, ever so slowly (and carefully), cutting the speed of a thief’s new ride. Any police in pursuit will obviously have a much easier time apprehending the suspect.

[…]

Just in case you’re wondering, OnStar promises the service will only be used on stolen vehicles. “Safeguards will be in place to ensure that the correct vehicle is slowed down.”

That’s reassuring.

To the closing line, “Not really!”

So OnStar, which often leads to OnStart, will implement something that could go by OnStop.

I like the benign implementations of the OnStar technologies.

I don’t like the misuse and abuse waiting to happen.

Above all, love God!